{"id":1841,"date":"2025-07-14T23:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T04:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/?p=1841"},"modified":"2025-07-14T23:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T04:11:07","slug":"breaking-the-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/breaking-the-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the Chain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019d love to say that growing up was the easiest thing I\u2019ve done, that school felt like a breeze, life always felt comfortable, and I never had to worry about what the future holds for me. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019d\u00a0love\u00a0<\/em>to say it, but it just wouldn\u2019t be true. My parents came from 2 completely separate countries and both never got a proper education which ultimately resulted in many hardships leaving their families and coming to America when they were my age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 in 50,000 babies every year are diagnosed with Cri du chat syndrome. My sister is a 1 in 50,000, and I didn\u2019t realize it at the time, but growing up in a household where my mom couldn\u2019t pursue her american dream because of always having to take care of my sister and my dad was always working to keep us afloat was very unique. Ever since I can remember, I was always being put in front of those chock-full children\u2019s learning books with seemingly endless pages on math, reading, writing, and more. My mom used to leave the house and told me I couldn\u2019t play on my playstation 2 until I did 15 full pages of the book that she assigned me, and I did do them\u2026\u2026\u2026.by flipping to the end and copying the answers\u2026(I ended up in big trouble and ended up doing even more pages with no playstation, so at least that was a lesson learned). Although I hated it then, I thank my mom for it now, because doing so many of those books allowed me to get into kindergarten one year earlier than I should\u2019ve (Born after September 1st rule).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could take this time to go over my life in elementary school and middle school and blah blah blah who cares. I want to flash forward to my life after covid and into high school, where I was about the age I could start helping my dad in his jobs with his HVAC business. It absolutely sucked, I remember the hot days where him and I would have to bust our asses putting in condensers and furnaces, air handlers and heat pumps, relining pipes and ductwork, and then when we were finally done, we would have to go home and take apart all the old equipment to take to the scrapyard. I truly have not been more grateful in my life to have the opportunity to get my ass busted like that, because god did that whip me into shape to take school even more seriously than I have ever. Those tough days gave me perspective, seeing how hard my dad worked, how much he gave up to give to me, how much he carried, and for that I\u2019ll forever be grateful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While my home life shaped one side of me, my time in school shaped the other. After quarantine, the outgoing and bubbly version of Jake turned into a closed off, shy, and reserved version instead. My lunchtimes were spent working on homework from my AP classes and getting as ahead as I possibly could just to make sure I could have enough time at home to help take care of my sister and teach my brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College was no better, my freshman year was spent doing as much as I could for my classes and never truly went outside of my comfort zone and socialized or joined a community. I always ended up prioritizing my classes and despite telling myself the summer before \u201cI\u2019m gonna talk to people\u201d, \u201cI\u2019m gonna get out of my shell\u201d, and many other self-affirming statements, I really didn\u2019t grow as much as I had hoped, yet my grades were good. That was before I had my first office hour session with my calculus 3 professor, Dr. Kolesnikov, and it was him who taught me about what REU\u2019s are. Fast forward a few months and plenty of rejections, I got an email back from one Sarah Pippin saying I got into this program, and accepting it was the best thing I have ever done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout my entire life, I have always been pressured and motivated to always do the best and be the best while I always never felt like I was ever doing enough. Life has always been moving so fast, that is until I got here, and I\u2019ve truly gotten the first chance to slow down and take a step back and look at everything I\u2019ve done. I\u2019m the first in my family to graduate from high school. The first in my family to go to college. The first in my family to go to an REU. The first in my family to take steps towards a comfortable life where my dad won\u2019t ever need to replace another furnace in his life. Where my mom won\u2019t have to always worry about my siblings or paying for another child\u2019s college. Where my sister won\u2019t ever<\/em> be in a nursing home because of her condition and will be able to live a happy long life in my house. Where my brother won\u2019t have to apply to only 3 colleges because of application fees and overall cost and will be able to go wherever he wishes to. Where I will look back at how my family came from nothing but empty pockets, broken English, and sleepless nights, then look around and see the life I built because of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a family history of struggles and hardships, I\u2019ve learned that love doesn\u2019t always sound like \u201cI love you.\u201d Sometimes, it sounds like the hum of a heat pump being installed on a 95 degree day. My mom quietly putting away dinner and cleaning when everyone is done. My sister laughing at the silly jokes and games I play with her when no one else has the time to. Or my brother running to give me a hug whenever I come home from college. This life and my journey throughout it is my silent thank you to them. For every moment they gave me more than they had, and for every dream they buried so I could dream mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I carry each of their sacrifices in every single step I take forward. Every late night spent studying, each new job opportunity I take, and every opportunity I chase, it\u2019s not just for me. It\u2019s for the little boy flipping to the back of the book for the answers to play on his playstation 2 a little faster. For the dad who lifted countless equipment with battered and calloused hands. For the mom who traded her dreams for her children. For the sister who never once asked for the pain life gave her. And for the brother who\u2019s still watching, quietly believing to himself that if I can make it, then maybe he can too. I don\u2019t just want <\/em>to succeed, I need <\/em>to, because I\u2019m the product of everything they gave up. Their sacrifices are what built me, their pain is what shaped me, and their love is what motivated me, and now it\u2019s my turn to break the chain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d love to say that growing up was the easiest thing I\u2019ve done, that school felt like a breeze, life always felt comfortable, and I never had to worry about what the future holds for me. Don\u2019t get me wrong, …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1842,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1841\/revisions\/1842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.vrac.iastate.edu\/reu2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}